Seed and juice characterization of pomegranatenext term fruits grown in Tunisia: Comparison between sour and sweet cultivars revealed interesting properties for prospective industrial applications

Tunisian previous termpomegranatenext term genetic resources consist of sweet and sour cultivars, showing large morphometric variability. In the present work we characterized seeds and juice contents of sugars and organic acids of 5 sour and 7 sweet previous termpomegranatenext term cultivars. Results showed that citric acid was predominant in sour previous termpomegranatesnext term, while malic acid was the most prevalent in sweet ones. Paradoxically, sour cultivars have higher sugar content than the sweet ones. A strong correlation was found between sourness and citric acid content, which is assumed to be the major factor that determines sour taste in previous termpomegranatenext term fruits. Besides, some of the seed parameters showed a significant positive correlation with acidity. Sweet cultivars were appropriate for fresh consumption and juice production due to several attributes in addition to their sweetness. Equally, sour previous termpomegranatenext term showed several characteristics that could be of great interest for food and nutraceutical industries